About Sumner Academy of Arts & Science

Established in the Fall of 1978, Sumner Academy of Arts & Science is a nationally ranked, college preparatory magnet school in Kansas City, Kansas serving students in grades 8-12.

The History of Sumner

Sumner Academy and the Sumner High School that came before it share a rich history of black achievement; at the same time, the schools embody Kansas City’s struggle with race and racism in its communities and schools.

Sumner High School: Racial segregation by design

In September of 1906, Sumner High School opened as a segregated black school. The school was the community’s response to a tragic incident that occurred on April 4, 1905.

What happened on April 4, 1905?

According to news articles at the time, a white teen, Roy Martin, was killed by a black teen, Louis Gregory. There was tremendous community upheaval, with white community members blocking black students from school entry and forming lynch mobs to retaliate against Gregory. Kansas City Kansas’s black community organized, and many were arrested as they gathered to block the mob of whites from harming Gregory. Gregory carried a gun for self-defense, and while there is evidence that he may in fact have acted in self-defense, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Within a year of the fatal shooting, by February 1905, the Kansas State Legislature passed a new law providing the legal basis for establishing a segregated high school in Kansas City, Kansas, despite the state’s existing law against segregated schools.

Originally named Manual High School, Sumner High School (named after abolitionist Charles Sumner) would become and remain segregated for the next 72 years. Sumner High School provided a top-notch education for Kansas City’s black students. Despite its demonstrated success and cultural significance to Kansas City’s black community, in 1978, it was transformed into a racially-integrated college preparatory school.

Sumner Academy of Arts & Science: The Plan for Desegregation

Finding the Kansas City Kansas USD 500 School District to be non-compliant with federal laws regarding segregation in schools, the United States Department of Justice required Kansas City Kansas to develop a school desegregation plan. The plan they developed included a new high school, Sumner Academy of Arts and Science, to replace the segregated Sumner High School. The plan was approved, and Sumner closed High School closed its doors in the spring of 1978. The school re-opened in the fall of 1978, re-branded as Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences, a magnet school for a racially diverse group of gifted and talented students from Kansas City, Kansas.

Transforming Sumner, though controversial, had a tremendous impact on the Kansas City community. For many of the city’s brightest black students, this new school promised an opportunity to get a better education than what would have been provided in many neighborhood schools throughout the city.

The outcomes of Sumner Academy’s first-class education for Kansas City’s black students, are without controversy and are extraordinary, as were the outcomes of the original Sumner High School. Among Sumner Academy’s black alumni, we have university scholars, world-class surgeons and doctors, published authors, established entrepreneurs, community leaders, government officials and other public servants, the nation’s top attorneys, exceptional artists, The Sole Survivor of Survivor: Fiji, and so much more.

Sumner Academy of Arts & Science Today